Business entities and consumers are storing an ever increasing amount of digitized data. For example, many commercial entities are in the process of digitizing their business records and/or other data. Similarly, web based service providers generally engage in transactions that are primarily digital in nature. Thus, techniques and mechanisms that facilitate efficient and cost effective storage of vast amounts of digital data are being implemented. For example, a cluster network environment comprising a plurality of nodes (e.g., one or more storage servers, one or more computing devices, etc.) may be used to facilitate the storage, retrieval, and/or processing of data. The nodes may cooperate together as a single coherent storage system (e.g., clustered storage environment and/or cluster of storage appliances).
The cluster network environment may support various features, such as a virtual file system. The virtual file system may utilize data replication and/or distributed calls so that user data may be stored, accessed, and/or processed across one or more nodes. For example, replicated configuration data (e.g., location of volumes, IP address configuration, cluster services, etc.) may be replicated across respective nodes within the cluster network environment. Respective nodes may comprise replicated configuration data, such that a single node may provide an administrative view of the entire cluster. Additionally, the cluster network environment may support distributed applications that may execute across one or more nodes. Respective nodes may comprise replicated application configuration data, such that a single node may provide an application view of the distributed applications.
Ideally, the cluster network environment may be able to tolerate integrity loss or “break” within the cluster without loss of availability (e.g., user data may still be accessible, distributed applications may still be executable, etc.). Integrity loss may occur from failure of a node, data loss, communication loss, a quorum loss (e.g., a failure of a majority of nodes resulting in a cluster network environment integrity loss), etc. Currently, very complex and fine grain commands may be used to restore integrity to nodes and/or the cluster network environment. For example, services may be shut down, nodes may be isolated, restoration may be performed, etc. Unfortunately, restoration may merely entail an administrator choosing a replica of a node, which may or may not comprise correct configuration data for the node to operate within the cluster network environment. Restoration may be further complicated because of the cluster computing aspect of the cluster network environment. That is, the cluster network environment (e.g., cluster storage system) may have a persistent state that may be associated with multiple instances of multiple services that may execute on multiple nodes, which may require extensive data synchronization. In contrast, a standard storage system may not have a persistent state, thus a simple restoration may merely comprise restoring a node from a selected backup without consideration of state and/or configuration of a network and/or computing devices therein.